Beauchamp v. Bertig

119 S.W. 75, 90 Ark. 351, 1909 Ark. LEXIS 452
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedApril 26, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 119 S.W. 75 (Beauchamp v. Bertig) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beauchamp v. Bertig, 119 S.W. 75, 90 Ark. 351, 1909 Ark. LEXIS 452 (Ark. 1909).

Opinion

Wood, J.

(after stating the facts). I. The Constitution of the United States declares that “full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State.” Art. IV, § 1. And section 905 of the Revised Statutes of the United States provides' a mode for the authentication of such records, and declares that the “records and judicial proceedings so authenticated shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State' from which they are taken.”

Hancock National Bank v. Farnum, 176 U. S. 640, was a suit in Rhode Island on a judgment recovered in Kansas. Judge B’-ewer, in passing upon the duly authenticated record of the Kansas court, after setting out the provisions of the Constitution and the acts of Congress, said (quoting earlier decisions) : “It is held that the same effect is to he given to the record in the courts of the State where produced as in the courts of the State from which it is taken.” Our own court, in many decisions in suits in this State based on foreign judgments, has announced the same rule; and, indeed, no other rule in such cases could be announced. Hensley v. Force, 12 Ark. 756; Buford v. Kirkpatrick, 13 Ark. 33; Peel v. January, 35 Ark. 331; Lockhart v. Locke, 42 Ark. 17; Glass v. Blackwell, 48 Ark. 50; Williams v. Renwick, 52 Ark. 160; Hallum v. Dickinson, 54 Ark. 311.

Appellees rely upon these cases as authority for their contention that the duly authenticated record of the judgment of the district court of Oklahoma should have the same effect as if it had been a judgment rendered here removing the disabilities of nonage of the Sitterdings. But this is not a suit based on a judgment rendered in Oklahoma. Moreover, these decisions are not in conflict with, but, on the contrary, only declare and uphold, the view that the provisions of the Constitution and Revised Statutes above were only intended to and did establish a rule of evidence. The Supreme Court of the United States in Cole v. Cunningham. 133 U. S. 107, at page 112, says: “The Constitution did not mean to confer any new power on the States, but simply to regulate the effect of their acknowledged jurisdiction over persons and things within their territory. It did not make the judgments of the States domestic judgments to all intents and purposes, but only gave a general validity, faith and credit to them as evidence. No execution can be issued upon such judgments without a new suit in the tribunals of other States, and they enjoy, not the right of priority or privilege or lien which they have in the State where they are pronounced, but that only which the lex fori gives to them by its own laws, in their character of foreign judgments.”

In Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265, at pages 291 and 292, it is said: “Those provisions establish a rule of evidence, rather than of jurisdiction. While they make the record of a judgment, rendered after due notice in one State, conclusive evidence in the courts of another State, or the United States, of the matter adjudged, they do not affect the jurisdiction, either of the court in which the judgment is rendered, or of the court in which it is offered in evidence. Judgments recovered in one State of the Union, when proved in the courts of another government, whether State or National, within the United States, differ from judgments recovered in a foreign country in no other respect than in not being re-examinable on their merits, nor impeachable for fraud in obtaining them, if rendered by a court having jurisdiction of the cause and of the parties.”

The Supreme of Georgia says: “This clause (‘full faith and credit’) is not to be received in the fullest import of the terms. It is referable to such records, etc., as pleadings and evidence. Any other construction, which would give the same effect to a foreign judgment as to our own, would, indeed, be to give to the laws of one State complete operation in another— would be to make a judgment in one State bind property in another.” Joice v. Scales, 18 Ga. 725; 23 Cyc. 1545, 1546, and 1556, 1557, and cases cited in notes; McElmoyle v. Cohen, 13 Pet. 312; Brengle v. McClellan, 7 Gill & J. 434, 438; Shelton v, Johnson, 36 Tenn. (4 Sneed) 672-682.

Conceding, then, the validity of this foreign judgment, we have given it the full faith and credit that it must receive when we consider it conclusive evidence that the district court of Oklahoma has adjudged a majority status for the Sitterdings before they were twenty-one years of age. Bowen v. Johnson, 5 R. I. 112; Olney v. Angell, 5 R. I. 198. But that is not the equivalent of a judgment here fixing such status for the minors. Far from it. Under our statute, an infant does not attain his majority until he is twenty-one years old. Kirby’s Digest, § 3756.

II. The proof is, that the deed of the Sitterdings to appellee, conveying the lot in controversy, was executed in Oklahoma, and appellees contend that the effect of the judgment was to make the deed an irrevocable conveyance. The judgment of a court under a statute authorizing the removal of disabilities of nonage could not be of any higher authority, or possess greater sanctity, than a direct enactment declaring majority at an age of 21 years. Proctor v. Hebert, 36 La. Ann. 250. That enlightened sentiment of international comity, based upon the principles of right and justice as well as good policy, generally causes the courts of one State to enforce, as far as practicable, ¡.he laws of another as to contracts and other transactions therein between pnvate individuals. Minor on Conflict of Laws, § § 3 and 4. But this rule of private international law or comity can not be invoked “where the enforcement of the foreign law would contravene some established and important policy of the State of the forum,” nor where the question relates to the transfer of the title to real property. Minor on Conflict of Laws, § 5. Smead v. Chandler, 71 Ark. 505. Says Mr. Minor: “Since immovable property is fixed forever in the State where it lies, and since no other State can have any jurisdiction over it, it follows necessarily that no right, title or interest can be finally acquired therein, unless assented to by the courts of that State, in accordance with its laws.” Minor on Conflict of Laws, § it ; Oakey v. Bennett, 11 How. 33; 1 Wharton on Conflict of Laws, § 276 b, p. 617. This general principle has been often recognized by this court. McDaniel v. Grace, 15 Ark. 465; Clopton v. Booker, 27 Ark. 482; Williams v. Nichol, 47 Ark. 254.

It has long been the rule in this State that an infant’s deed conveys title to his real estate subject to his right to disaffirm when he becomes of age. Bagley v. Fletcher, 44 Ark. 133; Horrad v. Myers, 21 Ark. 592. See also Stull v. Harris, 51 Ark. 294; Watson v. Billings, 38 Ark. 278; Fox v. Drewry, 62 Ark. 316; Tobin v. Spann, 85 Ark. 556.

It is deemed a wise policy of our law for the protection of the landed estate of infants to give them the untrammeled right to avoid their deeds on attaining their majority. The right is often their only shield against fraud, and their only remedy against improvident contracts.

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Bluebook (online)
119 S.W. 75, 90 Ark. 351, 1909 Ark. LEXIS 452, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beauchamp-v-bertig-ark-1909.